WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- U.S. National
Intelligence Director Mike McConnell has revealed some details of a secret
domestic eavesdropping program which sparked an uproar on Capitol Hill after it
was disclosed in late 2005.
In an interview last week with El Paso Times, a
Texas-based newspaper, McConnel disclosed that the program was monitoring
communications of less than 100 people inside the United States and
eavesdropping thousands of foreign calls connected via equipment on U.S. soil.
Transcripts of the interview were posted on the
newspaper's Website on Wednesday.
"On the U.S. persons side it's 100 or less. And then
the foreign side, it's in the thousands," he said.
McConnel said that warrants should not be needed for
intelligence agencies to monitor foreign-to-foreign calls transmitted through
the United States, but a warrant must be required for surveillance against calls
with one party inside the United States.
He said that it would need 200 hours for the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approves requests to eavesdrop calls
inside the country, to assemble a warrant on a single telephone number.
U.S. President George W. Bush authorized a domestic
eavesdropping program shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks that allows the
National Security Agency to monitor, without court warrants, international
telephone calls and e-mails of people inside the United States with suspected
ties to al Qaida.
The program, first revealed in December 2005, has
been criticized by Democrats and some Republicans who believe that Bush may have
overstepped his constitutional authority and violated a 1978 law.
Early this month, Congress passed a bill to expand
temporarily the government's powers in eavesdropping communications of foreign
terror suspects without court warrants.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government is
still investigating who leaked the secret warrantless eavesdropping program,
which was first revealed by The New York Times in December 2005, The Washington
Post reported on Monday.
Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
searched the home of former Justice Department lawyer Thomas Tamm last week in
an effort to determine who leaked details of the program to the media, according
to the newspaper. Full story
